Rajasthan Minister says other states should consider NRC

“If the step taken by Assam yields results, other states should come forward and take steps so that the traitors living freely can be traced," Kataria said on the sidelines of a press conference on the BJP's planned ‘Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra'.

Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria today said other states should consider following Assam in compiling the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to trace illegal migrants, whom he described as “traitors”.

"It is a policy decision,” he said when questioned on the controversy over the release of the draft NRC in Assam.

“If the step taken by Assam yields results, other states should come forward and take steps so that the traitors living freely can be traced," Kataria said on the sidelines of a press conference on the BJP's planned ‘Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra'.

Kataria said Rajasthan faces problems from illegal Bangladeshi migrants and every year several of them are pushed back to their country.

He said there was no strict law to deal with the problem.

The 58-day Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra will be flagged off by BJP chief Amit Shah from Charbhuja Nath Temple in Rajsamand district on August 4.

The yatra led by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will end in Pushkar on September 30, after a 6,054-km journey across the state which goes to the polls later this year.

Commenting on the recent lynching in Alwar of a man suspected to be a cow smuggler, Kataria said he would again appeal to the people not to take the law in their own hands.

They should inform the police so that necessary action can be taken in cases of cow smuggling and slaughter, he said.

He accused the Congress of speaking up only when atrocities occur on the minorities, but the party does not speak up “when minor Hindu girls are raped”.

Kataria also mocked Congress president Rahul Gandhi for visiting temples, saying it was good that he was learning from the BJP leaders.

Visiting temples will not harm him but will only develop right thinking, he said.

Asked about Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot’s remarks that the ‘Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra’ was only a damage control exercise, Kataria said the Congress should focus on its internal problems.

Gehlot was recently projected by another Rajasthan Congress leader as a possible chief ministerial candidate in the coming assembly elections, triggering a sharp rebuke from the party’s central leadership.